Transforming Qualitative Data: Description, Analysis, and Interpretation

"A Different Mirror" is a dramatic new retelling of our nation's history, a powerful larger narrative of the many different peoples who together compose the United States of America. In a lively account filled with the stories and voices of people previously left out of the historical canon, Ronald Takaki offers a fresh perspective - a "re-visioning" - of our nation's past.

A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. First Edition.

While much research that explores the role of race in education focuses on children of color, this article explores an aspect of the predominately White teaching force that educates them. This article explores findings from a qualitative study that posed questions about the ways in which White pre‐service teachers’ life‐experiences influenced understandings of race and difference, and how these pre‐service teachers negotiated the challenges a critical multicultural education course offered those beliefs. In keeping with the tenet of critical race theory that racism is an inherent and normalized aspect of American society, the author found that through previous life‐experiences, the participants gained hegemonic understandings about race and difference. Participants responded to challenges to these understandings by relying on a set of ‘tools of Whiteness’ designed to protect and maintain dominant and stereotypical understandings of race – tools that were emotional, ideological, and performative. This phen...

The unexamined Whiteness of teaching: how White teachers maintain and enact dominant racial ideologies

Although there is now a large body of empirical research on neighbourhood effects, we know relatively little about the causal mechanisms responsible for relationships between neighbourhood attributes and individual outcomes. A list of 15 potential causal pathways which may lead to neighbourhood effects is given, grouped into four categories: social-interactive mechanisms, environmental mechanisms, geographical mechanisms, and institutional mechanisms. The ultimate goal of neighbourhood effects research is not only to identify which mechanisms are responsible for neighbourhood effects, but also to quantitatively ascertain their relative contributions to the outcome under investigation. A pharmacological metaphor of “dosage-response” is used to understand how the theoretical mechanisms could be causally linked to individual outcomes. This metaphor refers to questions regarding the composition and the administration of the neighbourhood dosage, and the neighbourhood dosage-response relationship. This chapter concludes that despite the ever growing literature on neighbourhood effects, there is far too little scholarship to make many claims about which causal links dominate for which outcomes for which people in which national contexts and any conclusions on the existence of such effects should be treated as provisional at best.

The Mechanism(s) of Neighbourhood Effects: Theory, Evidence, and Policy Implications

In this article, we combine aspects of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Disability Studies (DS) to propose a new theoretical framework that incorporates a dual analysis of race and ability: Dis/ability Critical Race Studies, or DisCrit. We first examine some connections between the interdependent constructions of race and dis/ability in education and society in the United States and why we find it necessary to add another branch to Critical Race Theory and Disability Studies. Next, we outline the tenets of DisCrit, calling attention to its potential value as well as elucidate some tensions, cautions, and current limitations within DisCrit. Finally, we suggest ways in which DisCrit can be used in relation to moving beyond the contemporary impasse of researching race and dis/ability within education and other fields.

Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability

This article seeks to locate hip-hop in the realm of popular culture in education. Through the use of song lyrics, the author suggests the use of rap music to provide context for the humanities and social sciences in secondary curriculum. Using a theoretical and practical lens, the article argues for the use of hip-hop and other elements of popular culture to be utilized to develop relevant curriculum. Although the article highlights one aspect of hip-hop culture, it seeks to advocate for other creative techniques seeking to provide relevance for high school youth.

We can Relate Hip-Hop Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and the Secondary Classroom

Among the communities of critical race theorists and its detractors in education, there is an apparent rift as to what theoretical construct best contributes to the social justice project in education. Conferences and meetings have served as quasi‐battle grounds for theorists, activists and scholars to go back and forth about what theoretical construct has the greatest bearing on educational praxis. Debate notwithstanding, the following document argues critical race theory (CRT hereafter) as a viable theoretical construct to address issues of social justice in education. In so doing, the following document couches the discussion in three tasks. The first is to identify the contributions of CRT in education. Second, the document argues for a closer read of the theoretical construct and its subsequent application. The concluding task will be an example of how the points of contention and compliance can be located through an example (in this case narrative) of a school with a social justice agenda at its cen...

Forging community in race and class: critical race theory and the quest for social justice in education

Long-standing theoretical education frameworks and methodologies have failed to provide space for the role mental health can play in mediating educational consequences. To illustrate the need for such space, Ebony McGee and David Stovall highlight the voices of black undergraduates they have served in the capacities of teacher, researcher, and mentor. Building from the theoretical contributions of intellectual giants like Frantz Fanon and W. E. B. Du Bois, the authors attempt to connect oppressive social systems to the psyche of the oppressed in a way that is relevant to black students. McGee and Stovall pose a challenge to the current research trend of attributing the survival of black students at traditionally white institutions primarily to grit, perseverance, and mental toughness, noting that research on the aforementioned qualities often fails to properly acknowledge multiple forms of suffering. Utilizing the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the authors also challenge the construct of grit to consider the extent to which the mental health concerns of black students go undetected. Although critical race theorists have unmasked and attacked the racial trauma experienced at all levels of the educational system, the connection of CRT to mental health and wellness research is in its embryonic stages. For these reasons, McGee and Stovall argue that CRT scholars need to incorporate praxis to address mental health and wellness in order to address a fuller spectrum of black students' racialized worlds. Ultimately, they seek interdisciplinary perspectives that can help identify and foster strategies to support black students in the project and process of healing from multiple forms of racialized trauma they experience within and beyond their educational encounters.

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Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing, and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis

(2004). Actions Following Words: Critical race theory connects to critical pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 167-182.

Actions Following Words: Critical race theory connects to critical pedagogy

HJAAP would like to express sincere gratitude to Wiley Publications for granting permission to republish the following article, which originally appeared in Education Theory, Vol. 65, No. 5 in 2015.Introduction"Weathering," a term put forth by Arline Geronimus and colleagues, is a phenomenon characterized by the long-term physical, mental, emotional, and psychological effects of racism and of living in a society characterized by White dominance and privilege.1 Weathering severely challenges and threatens a person's health and ability to respond in a healthy manner to their environment. This can cause wear and tear, both corporeal and mental, and lead to a host of psychological and physical ailments, including heart disease, diabetes, and accelerated aging. These physiological manifestations of social inequality are not given sufficient attention, particularly in how they affect the academic outcomes and experiences of students and faculty of color. Long-standing theoretical education frameworks and methodologies have failed to provide space for the role mental health can play in mediating educational consequences. To illustrate the need for such space, we present the voices of Black undergraduates we have served in the capacities of teacher, researcher, and mentor. Although we are explicitly discussing Black college students in this conversation, we are by no means undervaluing the vital work being done on behalf of all students, teachers, administrators, and faculty within the African diaspora, and with other historically marginalized racial, gender, and socioeconomic groups. With this in mind, we are interested in the extent to which Black students are experiencing mental health concerns that go undetected. Even as we have showcased our research on the academic survival of Black students, we have grown accustomed to talking about grit, perseverance, and mental toughness, without properly acknowledging the multiple forms of suffering they have confronted (and still confront) as part of that story.We contend that current research on "grit" and "resilience," at least as these concepts are sometimes defined and operationalized, does not account for the toll societal racism takes on students who may be viewed as successful. The majority of this research refers to static definitions of resilience, such as the innate ability to bounce back from obstacles, without properly acknowledging how structural racism breeds the racial practices, policies, and ideologies that force Black students to adopt a racial mental toughness in order to pursue traditional forms of educational advancement. This static definition often leaves it up to individuals to rise above their challenges and roadblocks without recognizing the stress and strain associated with surviving (and even thriving) academically, despite encounters with racism.For the purpose of this account, we endorse more ecologically robust conceptions of resilience frameworks. For example, Margaret Beale Spencer's Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory of human development (PVEST) examines the interaction between environmental context and identity development, and starts with the assumption that an individual's perception of his or her environment and context is crucial to understanding his or her experiences and responses.2 A PVEST-informed, vulnerability-resiliency perspective accounts for the vulnerability of people of color who are burdened by unique and often under-examined levels of risk, while also acknowledging potential sources of support.Recognizing the need for hard work and persistence has long been cited as a factor in academic perseverance.3 In a series of longitudinal studies, researchers have asked whether grit, defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, predicts a range of objective outcomes of success after accounting for individual differences in ability. Notably, grit has been shown to predict the grade point averages of undergraduates better than standardized test scores such as the SAT. …

David Stovall

Papers

We can Relate Hip-Hop Culture, Critical Pedagogy, and the Secondary Classroom

Forging community in race and class: critical race theory and the quest for social justice in education

Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing, and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis

Actions Following Words: Critical race theory connects to critical pedagogy

Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing, and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis